Mario De Marco Ends 23-Year PN Career Ahead of 2026 Vote

Mario De Marco, a lawyer who has represented the 1st electoral district — which includes Valletta — since 2003, will not stand in the 2026 general election. Candidate nominations closed on Monday evening, 12 May 2026, without his name on the list, ending a 23-year parliamentary career that took him from the backbenches through Cabinet and the PN's deputy leadership, before a turbulent final chapter at the margins of opposition politics.

De Marco entered parliament in 2003 and spent his first five years as a backbencher before being appointed Parliamentary Secretary for Tourism in 2008. He was promoted to Minister for Environment, Tourism and Culture in 2012. Following the PN's loss of government in 2013, he became the party's Deputy Leader.

Health issues then forced him to step back from frontline politics for a sustained stretch, effectively removing him from the day-to-day work of opposition. That absence carried a cost. When Bernard Grech assembled his shadow Cabinet in 2022, De Marco was left out entirely — a pointed exclusion for a politician of his seniority and experience.

He returned to the shadow Cabinet roughly a year later, in 2023. He was expected to speak at a PN campaign activity in Valletta on the same Monday evening that nominations closed, placing his departure squarely in the opening days of the election campaign. De Marco carries a significant political inheritance.

His father, Guido de Marco, served as a minister alongside Eddie Fenech Adami and later became President of Malta — a figure central to the PN's long period of dominance. Mario De Marco's decision to step away closes a particular chapter in that family's association with Nationalist politics. He is not the only one standing aside.

Eight other PN MPs will not seek re-election: David Agius, Claudette Buttigieg, Ryan Callus, Ivan J. Bartolo, Robert Cutajar, Chris Said, Carm Mifsud Bonnici, and Karol Aquilina. On the Labour side, six MPs are also standing down: Aaron Farrugia, Michael Farrugia, Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi, Chris Agius, Clayton Bartolo, and Roderick Galdes.